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Critically Capitalist: The Spirit of Asset Capitalism in South Korea
An online book talk by Bohyeong Kim
The Research Centre for the Study of Gender, Media, and Sexuality (GEMS) at the Department of Communications, Drama, and Film at the University of Exeter invites you to an online book talk, Critically Capitalist: The Spirit of Asset Capitalism in South Korea.
Speaker: Bohyeong Kim
Date and Time: 4:30 pm on October 22, 2025
Venue: A Zoom link will be provided after registration on the Eventbrite page.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-book-talk-critically-capitalist-tickets-1712088375419?aff=oddtdtcreator
Speaker's Bio
Bohyeong Kim is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies and Asian Studies at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of Critically Capitalist: The Spirit of Asset Capitalism in South Korea (University of Michigan Press, 2025). Her research focuses on the relationship between media, culture, and the capitalist economy. Her work has appeared in Cultural Studies, Journal of Cultural Economy, Media, Culture & Society, Korean Journal of Communication, Television & New Media, among other journals. She is currently working on another book-length project about South Korea's platform capitalism and the tech-media-finance conglomerate Kakao.
Book description
Critically Capitalist presents an ethnography of South Korea's asset seekers, including amateur stock investors, real estate enthusiasts, and money coaches, to demonstrate how financialized asset capitalism is sustained. As they hunt for profit margins, rent, and dividends, they simultaneously critique capitalism and posit their pursuit of assets as a form of resistance. Bohyeong Kim theorizes this new spirit of capitalism in South Korea as "critical capitalism," arguing that it reflects the popular discontent with both national development and financial neoliberalism. As a paradoxical critique and legitimation, Bohyeong Kim argues that critical capitalism valorizes the capitalist economy not through a triumphant narrative, but by highlighting the emotional wounds, destroyed communities, and oppressive tactics of modern capitalism.
Drawing on multi-sited ethnography and in-depth interviews with a broad community of aspiring millionaires, Critically Capitalist illuminates how contemporary capitalism thrives by channeling discontent into financial and real estate markets, which in turn has cemented critical capitalism as the cultural and affective backbone of South Korea's economy.
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Woori Han
Lecturer
University of Exeter
Exeter
United Kingdom
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